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Mercury 3 vs Nova 2 Pro

Mercury 3 leads the LLM Stats Score 36.1 to 30.5.

Inception · Amazon · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Mercury 3 leads the overall LLM Stats Score 36.1 to 30.5, ranking #98 overall.

In the 3 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Nova 2 Pro wins 2; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.

Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.

Choose Mercury 3

  • overall performance matters — it scores 36.1 and ranks #98 on LLM Stats
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Oct 2026

Choose Nova 2 Pro

  • you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 2 of 3 exact shared results

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Mercury 3
Inception
Nova 2 Pro
Amazon
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
36.1
#98
30.5
#140
Reasoning
34.8
#103
30.3
#139
Coding
21.5
#105
19.0
#126
Agents
19.4
#84
11.9
#129
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
1 of 3
2 of 3
Input price
$0.10 / M
— / M
Output price
$0.35 / M
— / M
Context window
1,000,000
—

Individual benchmarks

12 reported for Mercury 3 · 18 for Nova 2 Pro

3 shared

Mercury 3 outperforms in 1 benchmarks (GPQA), while Nova 2 Pro is better at 2 benchmarks (IFBench, Multi-Challenge).

Nova 2 Pro shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks.

Thu Oct 22 2026 • llm-stats.com

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Mercury 3 specifies input context (1,000,000 tokens). Only Mercury 3 specifies output context (131,072 tokens).

Inception
Mercury 3
Input1,000,000 tokens
Output131,072 tokens
Amazon
Nova 2 Pro
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Thu Oct 22 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Nova 2 Pro supports multimodal inputs, whereas Mercury 3 does not.

Nova 2 Pro can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Mercury 3

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Nova 2 Pro

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Both models are licensed under proprietary licenses.

Both models have usage restrictions defined by their respective organizations.

Mercury 3

Proprietary

Closed source

Nova 2 Pro

Proprietary

Closed source

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Mercury 3 was released on 2026-10-19, while Nova 2 Pro was released on 2025-12-02.

Mercury 3 is 11 months newer than Nova 2 Pro.

Mercury 3

Oct 19, 2026

3 days ago

10mo newer
Nova 2 Pro

Dec 2, 2025

10 months ago

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.

Unable to compare the recency of their training data.

No cutoff dates available

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Mercury 3 and Nova 2 Pro side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Mercury 3
✓ Preferred
Nova 2 Pro
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Mercury 3 vs Nova 2 Pro.

Which is better, Mercury 3 or Nova 2 Pro?

Mercury 3 leads the LLM Stats Score 36.1 to 30.5. Mercury 3 is made by Inception and Nova 2 Pro is made by Amazon. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their capability indexes, individual benchmarks, pricing, and limits above.

How does Mercury 3 compare to Nova 2 Pro in benchmarks?

Mercury 3 scores GPQA: 89.2%, AA-LCR: 77.7%, IFBench: 76.8%, MRCR v2: 75.5%, DeepSearchQA: 71.3%. Nova 2 Pro scores Tau2 Telecom: 92.7%, AIME 2025: 92.3%, ScreenSpot: 88.1%, LongCodeBench: 84.0%, MMLU-Pro: 81.6%.

What are the context window sizes for Mercury 3 and Nova 2 Pro?

Mercury 3 supports 1.0M tokens and Nova 2 Pro supports an unknown number of tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between Mercury 3 and Nova 2 Pro?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (36.1 vs 30.5), multimodal support (no vs yes). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Mercury 3 and Nova 2 Pro?

Mercury 3 is developed by Inception and Nova 2 Pro is developed by Amazon.

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